Immigrants have contributed £25bn to the country in tax – more than they received in state handouts, a study has found.

The report, by University College London, said those who had moved to the UK since 2000 had made a significant boost to public finances.

They were also less likely to claim benefits or live in social housing than British people.

According to the study, between 2000 and 2011, immigrants were 45% less likely to receive handouts than those born in the UK and 3% less likely to live in social housing.

Even when compared to British people the same age and gender, immigrants were still 21% less likely to receive benefits, according to report authors Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini from UCL's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration.

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Prof Dustmann said: "Given this evidence, claims about 'benefit tourism' by EEA immigrants seem to be disconnected from reality."

The findings, which were reached using figures from the British Labour Force Survey, also showed that people from the European Economic Area (EEA - the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) contributed 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits in the decade to 2011.

Those from outside the EEA contributed 2% more in taxes than they received in the same period, the report showed.

Yet British people paid 11% less in tax than they received during the same period.

It also found that in 2011, 32% of recent EEA immigrants and 43% of non-EEA immigrants had university degrees, compared with 21% of the British adult population.

However, Sir Andrew Green, of the pressure group Migrationwatch UK, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "What this report finds is that, since 1995, they have made 'a negative contribution overall' but in the last two years they've contributed 2%. So the verdict for non-EU is that the benefit to the Exchequer is minimal or negative. For EU (migrants) it is clearly positive.

"If you take the whole of the EU that is the case, as you would expect, because if you include the EU 15 (pre-2004 members) you are including German engineers, French fashion designers and - as it's the European Economic Area - even Swiss bankers.

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"The real issue is not EU-15. That's broadly in balance, it's not an immigration issue. The real issue for the future is the very large numbers of low-paid immigrants from Eastern Europe."

A separate UCL study found that the Government's "cap" to cut net migration to the UK to the tens of thousands by 2015 was "neither a useful tool nor a measure of policy effectiveness".

A paper published online by Professor John Salt and Dr Janet Dobson from the Migration Research Unit at University College London looked at progress towards the target since the coalition Government was formed in 2010.

It found that "damage" has already been done by actions to cut work-related, student and family migration including to the UK's reputation as a good place to work and study.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We are building an immigration system that works in the national interest, with net migration down by a third since its peak in 2010."

Home Secretary Theresa May has in recent weeks been forced into U-turns on two immigration policies.